How to Make a Human

"Get the hell up, you lazy piece of crap!" Mae shouted in my ear, shaking me roughly. I would be bothered by this, but she had politely woken me up at seven, and had continued exercising her gentler tactics to wake me up for the last forty-five minutes. Unfortunately for us, school started at 8:00am, in class by 8:15am.

I groaned and rolled over, "Mae, how do you even know those words? Don't say 'hell'. It's bad, you'll end up going there."

"Oh, please, I'm eight, not mentally handicapped," she scoffed, stepping away from my bed and crossing her arms, "Now get up. We have fifteen or so minutes for you to get dressed and walk me to school. Don't fart around, just get dressed."

"Uh, I have a uniform, it's not going to take me all that long," I snorted, standing up and stretching.

"Yeah, well I assumed you would at least want to look semi-decent," she shot back. I responded with a blank look.

"Oh, just brush your damn hair! And try to put on some make-up or something," she huffed, turning on her heel and storming out of my room. Since when did eight-year-olds have the articulacy of fifteen-year-olds? I shrugged and rubbed my eyes, glancing at my mirror. I looked dreadful.

I tried to follow Mae's advice after I threw on my uniform. I dragged a brush through my hair, and I even poked my eye with mascara in the quest for beauty. I still looked awkward and lanky. C'est la vei.

By the time I was ready it was 8:01, and we had to walk twelve miles to school. Actually, it was only 1.5, but with my fitness level, it might as well have been 12 miles. Mae's school was about half a mile before mine, so my Oma and Opa thought it would be best if I could walk her and then carry on my merry way. So for the first mile Mae sprinted ahead of me, as I jogged lethargically behind her, laughing as Mae squawked out a few choice words at me.

When I finally showed to school it was 8:18am. Ah damn, and I was so close too. I was mailed a map and schedule, and told to report straight to class, so that was what I did. Or tried to anyway. After turning down hallway after hallway I had finally found my sanctuary or my purgatory, my first period class.

I opened the door slowly and was immediately met with a twenty pairs of eyes boring into me.

"Ah, Bobbie Heising, I presume?" a thin woman asked. I blinked twice just to be certain I wasn't imagining things. No, I was perfectly well. The woman before me was skinny, tall and wearing a long pink parka with neon green tights. Her green eyes were accented by her bright blue mascara. Sparkly flats with sequined dragon flies covered her feet, and a glittering butterfly clip held back her graying, shoulder length hair. She was quite something.

"Uh-" I paused and gathered my thoughts, "Yeah. That's me."

"Ah, of course it is," she said nodding her head and gliding toward me. She grabbed a firm hold on my shoulder and lead me to the front of the class. The classroom was quiet, pretending to do their work, while casting secretive glances my way and mumbling to their classmates.

"Sweet peas," the teacher called in a whimsical and soft voice, immediately receiving the attention of the class. Was this woman for real?

"This here is a new student. Now, as I am sure you are aware, it is incredibly hard to transfer schools at such a late time, and it is incredibly brave of Bobbie to so willingly follow her family," she sighed dreamily.

"Now, I had a student years ago who moved in the middle of the year, and he was a bit odd, and so he was made fun of,” she began. “He killed himself."

I almost snorted but stopped myself. I suppose she wasn't joking then?

"Now, I know this class, and although I realize no mal intent is meant, we can be quite… mischievous, shall we say? I don't want anyone giving Bobbie a hard time."

The class was quiet, some people glancing at each other pointedly and trying not to giggle at their teacher's eccentric ways, at least I hope that's what they were laughing at.

"Anything you would like to add on to that, Bobbie?" the teacher said, fixing her hawk-like gaze on me, The class waiting expectantly.

"Ah, yes. Welcome. I mean… I feel welcome. I mean- just don't tease me into suicide," I muttered. The teacher sniffed and glided through the red tables she had set up.

"Now, I am Miss Goilleur. This is my classroom, if you need anything, I do hope you feel comfortable talking to me," she announced, more to the entire class then me. She floated to a table with only one student inhabiting it and swept a chair out for me.

"This is your new seat, here is your homework, and if there is anything you do not get, do not hesitate to ask."

"Alright," I muttered, taking the packet she handed me and taking my seat. Instead of the regular desks lined up, Miss Goilleur had chosen to get five large, red, round tables. There were only 16 people in the entire class. It reminded me of elementary school. But I suppose her whole room was like that.

"Hi," the student next to me mumbled.

"Hmm?" I asked, taking my gaze off of the unicorn poster on the wall and redirecting my vision to the student next to me. He had short brown hair that looked as though it had been dyed in the past. His pale brown eyes were bored, half-lidded, and framed with thick eyelashes. Why do guys always have such fantastic eyelashes? Seriously, what the hell? His nose was pointed, but not too much so, and his jaw was sharp. He was a soup-uh hot-ay. No, just kidding. He looked like a good looking, normal teen minus the acne. Some kids have all the luck.

"Hi," he repeated.

"Oh, yeah. Hi, I'm Bobbie," I introduced, sticking my hand out. When he ignored my hand I awkwardly attempted to make it look like I had just been going to stretch.

"So I've heard," he snorted.

"Uh… cool," I shrugged, for lack of something better to say. No, it wasn't cool. I wouldn't know cool if it was tattooed on my ass.

"I'm Demetri," he said sticking his hand out for me to shake, which I did. Oh, so now it's cool to shake hands?

"Demetri?" I echoed, "Like in Anastasia?

"No," he shot down.

"Oh, I suppose you get that a lot then?"

"No," he shot again.

"Ah. Silly, silly me."

"You know what I think?"

"That my pasty white skin and plain looks compliment my sparkling personality? That my cynicism is just a show, and I'm really just a softy? That my quick wit and high intelligence level is wasted on my lethargic work ethic?"

"None of the above," he said dully, "I think our chairs are a bit to close for my liking."

"Oh! Right! Of course! Sorry! That was my next guess, for sure," I babbled awkwardly, immediately pushing my chair away from his and blushing like the loser I am. Demetri rolled his eyes and laid his head down on the table, ready to drift off to sleep. I stared at him for a minute. Seriously? That was it? No "New student? Wow! Come to a wild student party with me! There will be underage drinking and you're a good candidate to have regrettable sex with some creepy college kid who wastes his time at high school parties due to the lack of friends his own age"? Weird. I could have sworn that was standard procedure.

I flipped open the packet and scanned through the pages. Grammar. Damn. I fished a pencil out of my bag and began on the first page, or tried to anyway. Was I in Spanish? What the hell was a gerund? And why does the top of this paper say review? I glanced at Demetri who was passed out on the table, his paper peeking out from underneath his arms, completely finished. Oh, I am so going to copy that. Before I could begin to weasel the paper away from Demetri the classroom door swung open with such force that it whacked the wall and swung back shut, successfully hitting the person in the doorway in the nose, causing him to yelp, which caused Demetri to wake up, somehow completely unperturbed and stare at the door, which caused me to lose hope of copying his packet, which caused me to hate the new arrival to the class. Oh, the butterfly effect, how you betray me so.

The student at the door cursed under his breath ("son of a bitch!") and grabbed his nose.

"Excuse me?" Mrs. Goilleur asked, taking her eyes off of the paper she was grading and peering over her glasses at the newcomer.

"I said I have a twitch!" the boy immediately defended.

"I'm sure," Mrs. Goilleur drawled. "Because, Mr. Shane Henry, I know you're a gentlemen. And I know you would never use fowl language in the presence of all these fine young women," she waved her hand over the class, as if to prove that yes indeed, there were girls here.

"Yes. Right. That's what I was thinking," Shane said while handing her a blue note.

Mrs. Goilleur nodded, "Take your seat."

Shane nodded and moved to the table I was sitting at. By this time Demerti had dropped his head to his desk and was sleeping soundly again. How did he do that? The boy sat down parallel to me and… completely ignored my existence. Eff my life.

He had messy red hair that flung in every direction and caramel eyes that were warm and inviting. His soft features contrasted greatly with the sneaky smirk he wore.

"Demetri?" he asked, pushing on Demetri's shoulder.

"Piss off," Demetri mumbled.

"Oh good, then you're up?" he laughed. Demetri grunted.

"Good, then listen. I have plans. Today at lunch, I'm thinking that we could--"

"God, no. Consider your plan shut down. It would never work," Demetri sighed, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"I didn't say anything though!" Shane whined.

"Yeah, but I'll just assume that it was dumb."

"No, it's not. I promise."

"Fine. Go."

"Seriously? You'll listen to my plan?"

"Yes. Go," Demetri said bluntly. Jesus, what a d-bag.

"Okay, so we drink a whole fuck-load of Mountain Due and then we piss in the heaters and--"

"Denied," Demetri shot, putting his head back down to sleep.

"Ouch," I mumbled. Shane's head snapped towards me as though he was just noticing me, which is weird, because you'd have to be blind or an idiot to not notice someone sitting at the same table as you.

"Hey! New student! I didn't notice you!" he cheered excitedly. Oh. Well, at least I know what I'm up against.

He immediately extended his hand to me and shook my whole arm enthusiastically, "I'm Shane!"

"I'm--" I started, only to be cut off.

"No! Let me guess! I have a knack for names," he squinted one eye and put his finger in the air as if telling me to wait.

"It's Elizabeth," he said after a minute.

"The Second," I corrected.

"Seriously? Elizabeth the Second? Holy crap, when I saw you I thought of the number two!"

"No it's not Elizabeth the Second, asstard, she's fucking with you," Demetri mumbled, not moving his head.

"You have quite the vocabulary,” I complimented. Demetri rolled his eyes and ignored me.

Did I say something wrong?